Van Vlissingen naar Spitsbergen 2026 'Embracing the ice'

In the hush of polar breath
where the world forgets its pulse,
ice does not merely lie—
it listens.

It surrounds you, slowly,
not as a cage,
but as a memory you cannot step out of.
White upon white,
until even your thoughts echo.

There is a silence here
that feels like being known.

Beneath your boots,
centuries sleep in frozen layers—
whispers pressed into crystal veins,
the weight of time without a voice.
And still, it calls you.

Not loudly.
but gently.

It calls the way old wounds do—
in the spaces between breaths,
in the flicker before sleep,
in the ache behind a forgotten name.

You begin to remember.

The battles

The one you lost

before you understood the cost—
how your hands trembled,
how your voice broke against a closing door.
The way defeat lingers,
not as failure,
but as unfinished echo.

the one you won.

Not with glory,
but with endurance.
With quiet, stubborn fire
against a night that refused to end.
The kind of victory
no one saw
but you.

The ice tightens, gently,
like a truth you tried to outrun.
It does not judge.
It reflects.

Every look forward on the ice
is a reflection inwards.

Every breath
clouds the  polar air
like a memory made visible—
there, then gone,
but never truly lost.

And you realize—
this frozen vastness
is not empty.

It is filled
with everything you buried.

And here,
at the edge of the world,
with nothing left to distract you,
you are finally surrounded
by yourself.

                                                                      -             Kribo 06-2026